Local News in Brief : Train Station Restoration

City officials and community activists Thursday formally kicked off the $586,000 restoration of the historic 84-year-old Watts train station.

The project had been delayed for more than a year by various problems with contract bids and out-of-date cost estimates. But the city Community Redevelopment Agency, which is in charge of the project, said the restoration is now back on track, and the small wood-frame train station will reopen in the fall as a small train museum and district office for the city Department of Water and Power.

The station work is part of a $28-million redevelopment project, begun in 1969, which has resulted in construction of several major housing projects, a shopping complex, community and health centers and a post office in an area badly burned in the 1965 Watts riots.